The DLB had the chance to speak to The Last Exorcist Part II director Ed Gass-Donnelly last week in his hometown of Toronto about working with series star Ashley Bell, shooting in New Orleans, his vision for the franchise, and working with a low budget

First of all, tell me about New Orleans. Tell me about, obviously the typical thing is it’s a character in the movie, certainly Louisiana was very much a character in the first one, in terms of depression of Ashley’s character, Nell; talk about working there and New Orleans as a character in your film.

Well, the big thing for me is that you’ve got this girl in the first movie that has lived in such a repressed environment. Her father won’t even let her go to school and won’t let her listen to music that’s not Christian music, so I loved the idea of what would it be like for that girl to suddenly be…the movie starts with her sort of lost and feral in the woods, almost no memory of what happened, and then she gets put into a transitional home in New Orleans, so you go from like a cabin in the woods where you have no sense of culture, to suddenly being in the middle of Mardi Gras, and certainly what I love about horror movies is it a chance to explore bigger themes and ideas but in a very sort of pop culture environment, so to me this movie is sort of a metaphor for ultimately girls discovering their own voice and sexuality.

Rue Morgue Magazine received a lot of incredulous feedback when they published my review of the first Paranormal Activity film. I had written that it was the scariest filmgoing experience I had ever had; that was misinterpreted as “Paranormal Activity is the scariest movie ever made.”

It is true: the Paranormal Activity films are best experienced in a movie theatre, which is why Paramount uses night vision footage of screaming preview audiences to hype each new film.

So it will be interesting to see how audiences react to PA4. The guy to my left at last night’s screening was talking, checking his email and texting throughout, and said, “Thank God that’s over” at the end, while the four teen guys to my right were vocal about their enthusiasm for each set piece. (“Bitch got owned!” greeted the death of one character.)

How far would you go to secure your own legacy? That is the question at the heart of Sinister, The Exorcism of Emily Rose writer-director Scott Derrickson’s return to horror after helming the underrated sci-fi remake The Day the Earth Stood Still.

The DLB recently spoke to Russell Cherrington, the restoration director of Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut, the extended/re-purposed version of Clive Barker’s notoriously troubled second film as a director, for MSN Canada. You can read that article here.

Cherrington, alongside Mark Miller from Barker’s Seraphim Films and effects animator Paul Jones, will be in Toronto tonight (July 19) to present the new Nightbreed as part of Rue Morgue Magazine‘s Cinemacabre film series. The screening starts at 9pm and takes place at the TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King St. West).

28 Weeks Later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s follow-up film Intruders hits DVD/Blu-ray after receiving only a limited theatrical release this spring, and we recommend it to rent. The dark fantasy film stars Clive Owen (Closer) as a father whose daughter Mia is being terrorized at night by a figure in her room she calls Hollow Face. A parallel story shows a boy in Spain dealing with the same monster. There’s a connection we won’t give away, but figuring it out is half the fun.

I got the chance to talk to Fresnadillo about Intruders at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Toronto After Dark returns to The Bloor Cinema tonight for the final installment of its summer series. First up, at 7 pm, is music video director Joseph Kahn’s Detention. The Hunger Games‘ Josh Hutcherson stars in this horror comedy about a killer stalking the halls of Grizzly Lake, and reviews have been surprisingly positive.

The cast of Detention

Next up, at 9:45pm is V/H/S. A found footage anthology film that scared the shit out of Sundance audiences, it sees a group of thieves screening a series of disturbing videotapes during the search for a piece of rare footage. Directors on the film include David Bruckner, Glenn McQuaid, Ti West, Chad Villella, Justin Martinez, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Nicholas Tecosky, Simon Barrett and Tyler Gillett.

Despite online chatter that an Entity remake is on the way (allegedly helmed by Ringu director Hideo Nakata), I find that hard to imagine. First, what studio is going to finance a movie about a malevolent spirit that repeatedly rapes the leading lady? Secondly, which actress would be brave enough to step into the shoes of the original’s star, Barbara Hershey? While not perfect by any means, the original Entity remains a disturbing film made in a bolder time, and a new version would likely be toothless by comparison.